April 18, 2003

Final Stats

Two Westminster Academy graduates matched up in an Atlantic Sun conference game on Friday night as the University of Central Florida hosted no. 15 Florida Atlantic University. Danny Core and Von David Stertzbach faced each other for the first time in their careers and saw Stertzbach got the upper hand as he pitched a career-high 8 1/3 innings and guided UCF to an 8-3 victory.

Two of FAU's six hits came in the first inning on a Mike Murray (Boca Raton, FL) double and Rusty Brown (N. Fort Myers, FL) RBI single. Brown increased his team leading RBI total to 46.

Core only faced 10 hitters through the first three innings before UCF scored four runs in the third inning with two outs. Second baseman Nathan Kragt started the inning with a single to center field before two fly outs to right field improved the situation for FAU. But Core issued his first walk of the night to put Kragt into scoring position and the inning fell apart for Florida Atlantic as the Golden Knights (25-15, 9-7 A-Sun) recorded three straight hits, two of them doubles from the seven and eight hitters.

The lead dwindled to one after the top of the seventh when FAU (32-10, 16-6 A-Sun) posted two runs after Matt Pali (Houston, TX) reached on an error and advanced to third on a Mike Cox (Sarasota, FL) double down the left line. Pali scored on a Shaen O'Connor sacrifice fly to deep left field. A Rob Horst single scored Cox to bring the score to 4-3.

Another four-run inning by the Golden Knight in the bottom of the seventh put the game out of reach. Two doubles and two singles off of Core gave the Knights an 8-3 lead. UCF got to Core as he gave up a career-high eight runs and a season-high 10 hits as he fell to 6-2.

In Stertzbach's 8 1/3 innings he struck out eight and only allowed two earned runs before he put two men on base in the bottom of the ninth. UCF head coach Jay Bergman elected to go to the pen to close out the game with Kyle Bono. Stertzbach improves to 2-4.

The series will continue on Saturday with a 1 pm doubleheader. Two FAU left-handers, Randy Beam and Travis NeSmith will face UCF's right-handed duo of Mark Michael and Lincoln Mincks